handle the irritation, then you should discuss it with Captain Foss. Unfortunately, we need her help on something else before you take off, so you’ll just have to deal with this for now.”
“He’s the one you need to worry about, not me,” Rei said. “I’m sure he’s under orders from Colonel Rombert. Which side will he support more, the Intelligence Forces or the SAF?”
“The SAF, naturally,” Major Booker replied, looking serious again. “He’s now been officially transferred to Special Air Force 5th Squadron. He may have colluded with Rombert to pass on any information that he learns to the Intelligence Forces, but the orders related to sending them the details of that information came from me with General Cooley’s permission, not from Colonel Rombert.”
“It’s possible he’ll contact Colonel Rombert secretly, despite your orders.”
“According to his profact, he won’t. Lieutenant Katsuragi only carries out his orders. According to Captain Foss, what we need to watch out for is how Katsuragi may react if Colonel Rombert makes a direct appeal. Rombert is no longer in any position to issue orders to him, but the man’s a pro at his job. If he wanted to, he could get information he needs out of Katsuragi. But for our part, we have nothing to hide from him at the moment. No matter what anyone says, we’re carrying out this strategic reconnaissance operation. Nobody is going to stand in our way. Even the Intelligence Forces have no reason to oppose it. They and Colonel Rombert aren’t our enemies, but they aren’t our allies either. The profact predicts that Lieutenant Katsuragi will behave in the same manner. He only acts on what interests him.”
“And what is it that interests him now?”
“Yukikaze and you,” Major Booker said. “That and your relationship with the JAM. Colonel Rombert seems to have sent him over here with those interests in mind. That’s what Captain Foss reports that T-FACPro II predicts, anyway. It seems likely, and I didn’t need a profact run on him to expect that. However, the part of the report I found interesting is this — Katsuragi is interested in you and Yukikaze, but he isn’t clearly aware of that himself. I was wondering what that meant, but when I remembered what you were like, I understood.”
“What do you mean?”
“As far as Lieutenant Katsuragi is concerned, anything outside of himself is imaginary. Only the situations that he has to deal with are real, but reality to him means that you and Yukikaze exist strictly as relationships, not physical objects. It doesn’t matter to him if the external world is real or not, and he isn’t interested, anyway. Those were the results of Edith’s profacting of him.”
“That sounds like an illness.”
“One from which it looks like you’ve completely recovered, Rei. Until you went back home on leave, you weren’t sure if Earth really existed. Well, Captain Foss doesn’t refer to it as an illness. She says it’s not that rare,” Major Booker said. “The thing is, as he is now, Katsuragi won’t be able to operate Yukikaze perfectly, because you can’t operate something that isn’t real to you. So, Rei, you don’t have to worry about Lieutenant Katsuragi stealing Yukikaze away from you.” Major Booker smiled.
“Quit teasing me, Jack.”
“Sorry.”
“Let’s hear the sortie schedule.”
“You take off tomorrow morning at 09:15. Your flight officer will be Lieutenant Katsuragi. You’ll be flying regular tactical recon duty in the skies over JAM base Cookie. Your preflight briefing will be forty-five minutes beforehand. Since Katsuragi’s new here, we’ll be cutting him some slack. Your mission details are in this file. Any questions?”
“Has Lieutenant Katsuragi had any training on a Maeve?”
“Yeah. He’s training on the electronic warfare simulator right now. He’ll probably pick it up pretty quickly, since he used to do the same job in the Japanese Air Force. Well, considering his personality, it was only a matter of time before they threw him out of there. Physically, he should have no problems. Being short is a blessing in his case, since his test results show he can take nine Gs without passing out. You want to read his detailed personal history?”
“No, that’s fine. That has nothing to do with him performing his duties. Just let me see the results of his strength and reflex tests.”
“Gotcha. The hard copies are over there. There you go. I’ll lend them to you.”
“You just have to let me see them for a second.”
“There’s a meeting I have to get to now. General Laitume has been throwing cold water on the SAF’s decision to maintain surveillance on Richwar base. It looks like he’ll be giving me an official response to what I talked about at that lunch meeting.”
“Isn’t this a job for the Strategic Reconnaissance Corps?” Rei said as he skimmed through the papers handed to him. “What the hell is the SAF doing? That’s what he’ll probably ask you. I’ll bet the general’s pretty pissed at us.”
“Maybe. Because of our unique position, I think the SAF should be in attendance at the FAF’s highest level strategy meetings, but we always get ignored. In the end, we’re seen just as an organization that operates under Laitume’s command. The brass don’t appreciate our ability. They will, sooner or later, but I have a feeling that, by then, it’ll be too late.”
“It seems like the JAM appreciate our ability,” Rei said to Major Booker, who was busy thrusting papers into a briefcase on his desk as he prepared to leave for his meeting.
“Major, what do you think about the prediction that Yukikaze made? If the JAM succeed in getting the SAF on its side, then the FAF is doomed. It’s not an absolutely impossible situation. I could imagine we might even be involved with a JAM psy-op without even being aware of it.”
Major Booker stopped what he was doing, looked at Rei, then spoke.
“If that strategy would allow the SAF to survive, then it’s possible we’d adopt it.”
“What, join forces with the JAM to survive? Are you serious, Jack?”
“Those were General Cooley’s words. Naturally, she doesn’t think doing that would be the best strategy for us to follow at this point in time. But I wouldn’t be surprised if I heard her say something like that. So did you, if I recall correctly. You said something along the lines of this being a fight for survival. That the JAM and Yukikaze are also our rivals in a struggle for existence.”
“Yeah, but I was speaking from my own personal standpoint. That doesn’t apply to the SAF or the FAF. Our objective is to stop the JAM from invading Earth.”
“As things are going now, General Cooley thinks that it’s only a matter of time before the FAF is defeated. We don’t know to what extent the FAF has been infiltrated by the JAM, so anyone who still thinks that we can win as things stand is nuts. That being the case, the general has decided that we’re now facing the choice of either dying along with the FAF or initiating our own private war. You could say that our fate rests on her decision.”
“If General Cooley decides we should try making friends with the JAM,” Rei replied, “then I’m going to start suspecting her of being a JAM herself.”
“If you’re going to say that, then you’d be just as much a suspect as she is, Captain Fukai. Cooley told me she thought you might have made up this whole story about Yukikaze producing that prediction. Colonel Rombert also suspects you of being a JAM. That’s the reason he sent Lieutenant Katsuragi over here.”
“If I were a JAM, Yukikaze would see through me,” Rei said.
“Don’t bet on it... Still, in the end, Yukikaze considers the JAM her enemy. If the SAF ever decided to cooperate with the JAM, then she’d lose her entire reason for being. Dealing with that could turn into a major problem.”
“The JAM are our rivals in a struggle for survival regardless of whether they’re our enemies or our allies in this war, and that goes for Yukikaze as well. She no longer needs to get her reason for existence from an external source. She’ll choose to do what it takes to survive.”
“You talk about Yukikaze as though she were alive.”
“She is alive,” Rei declared, without a shred of doubt in his voice. “Just like I’m alive. That has nothing to do with being human or JAM. Right now, Yukikaze is neither.”
“That’s fine to say as an individual. You’re free to say whatever you want to. But for me, as someone with command responsibilities, it’s a different story. Personally, I don’t doubt you. Similarly, every individual at the top of our organization that isn’t JAM only acts based on what they believe. What we do, we do based on our individual beliefs. But think about it — the SAF has always been like that. To not only bring all of these sorts of individuals together as a group but also manage them is a kind of miracle, as Captain Foss would say. But the rest of the FAF
